


the gold light falling backward

by Stairre



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Consensual Sex, Don't copy to another site, Explicit Sexual Content, Lucid Dreaming, M/M, Or Is It?, Past Character Death, Past Sexual Assault, Rough Sex, Sticky Sexual Interfacing, Tactile Sexual Interfacing, Transformers Plug and Play Sexual Interfacing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:20:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25014589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stairre/pseuds/Stairre
Summary: Aboard theLost Light, Drift dreams of Wing.---Is this basically 6k of porn-with-feelings? Yes, yes it is. Has the author managed to combine three different How Cybertronians Have Sex premises into one? Yes, yes they have.
Relationships: Drift | Deadlock/Wing
Comments: 15
Kudos: 43





	the gold light falling backward

  
  
**  
the gold light falling backward  
**   
  


–  
  
  


Drift looks at Wing, and _wants.  
  
_

The edges of the room shift a little, hazy and warm. This is a dream, Drift knows. Why else would Wing be here? In the waking world, he is gone, long gone.  
  


But here, he’s resplendent. Reclined on Drift’s berth, frame whole, paint glossy with wax. The Great Sword is leaning against the uncertain wall, the only stationary object in the room that isn’t the berth.  
  


“Is this what you want?” Wing asks, careful and respectful as he always was, despite the way his shining gold optics cycle their inner lenses wider with desire. The large turbines in his shoulders whirr slightly, and he sits up on the berth, arranging his frame to a neutral position. No pressuring forward incline, no disgusted backward lean.   
  


Just Wing.   
  


“Yes,” Drift says, shameless here in the not-real world, as truthful as he had been silent all those centuries ago. “Is it… something I can have?” he asks, hesitant. He wonders if this dream will turn into a nightmare. If Wing will reject him for the monster he once was, for the filthiness of the stains on his spark. He’s trying to do better, trying so _hard,_ but it’s not easy. And every time he falls short, he lets Wing down, besmirches his memory.  
  


But Wing tilts his head, a light, inviting smile stretching onto his handsome faceplates. “It is,” he says, but does not move.  
  


Drift goes to him instead, walking across the room. The floor beneath warps from the metal of the _Lost Light,_ to the tiles of Wing’s home in New Crystal City, to the smooth stone of the Temple of the Circle of Light, unable to decide where this encounter should be taking place.  
  


 _Here,_ Drift thinks. _I would want, in my dream world, for Wing to be here with me, by my side._ The floor solidifies into the standard circuitry-laden metal expanse of many ships, the room becoming Drift’s hab suite onboard the _Lost Light._ There’s a small altar in the middle of one wall, the shelves of data-pads, the terminal in the corner, the scattered collection of possessions.  
  


Wing glances around it curiously. “Yours?” he asks, as Drift climbs onto his berth, positioning himself over Wing, who reclines again to let Drift straddle him properly.  
  


“Yes,” Drift says. “On the _Lost Light._ I didn’t – it wouldn’t be right. To be elsewhere.” Drift couldn’t imagine trying to situate this dream in Wing’s home. It wouldn’t have been right, not for that time in his life.   
  


If he had acted on the desire he had felt then, it wouldn’t have been from a healthy place. True, Wing would have likely stopped anything, to past-Drift’s probable fury, but looking back Drift can see that he would have been right to. Wing had been a friend and mentor, but also, in a way, a guard. To protect the citizens of New Crystal City from Drift, who was still in a very unwell mental state at that point.   
  


Drift isn’t even angry about it, can’t be. He knows, better than anyone, what _Deadlock_ had been like.   
  


(Wing had offered, once, an option to leave New Crystal City. Drift’s memory chips would have been carefully and professionally wiped of the files pertaining to its existence, given some resources, and dropped at a neutral space station. And all of it only with his consent.  
  


Drift, for reasons he himself had not fully understood, had refused.)  
  


So, no. He had felt that attraction for Wing, but had never acted on it. Their power dynamic at the time would have made it wrong. Drift himself had cringed away at the idea of placing himself into the hands of someone with such power over him, despite what his dreams had him longing after. One of his better decisions, at that point in his life.  
  


But Drift’s far beyond that now, and Wing is, well. Far beyond anything.  
  


Drift leans down, and kisses him. Wing’s lips are soft, and pliant, and he parts them to let Drift in, confused but going along with it. Kissing is not very Cybertronian, but those who spent time on Earth picked it up. Drift carefully pushes his glossa inside, dragging it lightly over Wing’s denta, tasting the lubricant within. Wing’s mouth is warm, his glossa hesitantly rising to meet Drift’s, sliding them against each other.   
  


He tastes a little like the standard mid-grade energon of New Crystal City’s refineries, high in iridium and platinum, Drift thinks. Wing had always added cobalt shavings, Drift remembers, to offset the taste into something he found palatable. Drift had just drunken it in any shape it came in, too much of the Dead End still within him to incite any pickiness about fuel. Drift had nearly forgotten that.  
  


Wing hums a little into Drift’s mouth, bringing his hands up to place his palms on Drift’s face. He doesn’t pull away.  
  


 _The great thing about not needing to breathe,_ Drift considers as he runs his glossa over the roof of Wing’s mouth, knowing that it will stimulate rarely-used sensors, _is that kissing doesn’t have to be interrupted._ Wing moans, surprised, as his internal oral sensors try to comprehend the unusual stimuli.  
  


Drift coaxes Wing’s glossa out of his mouth, gets his lips around it, and _sucks._ Glossas are an unexpected hot zone for most; full of thousands of tiny chemo-receptors meant for detecting potentially unsafe substances before they make it to the fuel tank. Most don’t think to take advantage of their sensitivity for erotic purposes, but Earth redefined _tactile_ for those who spent time there.   
  


Wing certainly doesn’t seem to be complaining, whining into his mouth, though Drift knows he has no experience with kissing.  
  


Drift, reluctantly, breaks the kiss. The shine of oral lubricant on Wing’s lips looks good, as does the brightness of his optics. His faceplates are warm with desire, the turbines in his shoulders spinning rapidly, venting hot air. He looks somewhat embarrassed, even, to be so swiftly responsive, his systems flushed with desire.  
  


Drift is delighted, though, and his EM field pulses with it, sparking against Wing’s. _Aroused_ is a look Drift has long wanted to put on Wing’s face, in his EM field, his elegant frame squirming with it. Drift purposefully scrapes his pelvic plating against Wing’s, _knowing_ that it will set humming sensor-nets alight, and grins when Wing gasps.  
  


Drift clamps his knees either side of Wing’s hips, resting more of his weight down and letting their aroused sensor-nets spark against each other, EM fields doing the same. He can taste static in the air, like a lightning storm approaching. His fans are ticked up high – as are Wing’s – and they are both venting hot air into the already-warm room. Drift always keeps his room warm, leery of the accursed cold.  
  


“Do you want me, Wing?” he asks, hushed. Every part of Wing’s frame is screaming _yes_ , but he wants to hear the words. “Want me inside you? My systems jacked right into yours? Feeling you, every part of you?”  
  


Wing audibly resets his vocaliser in a burst of meaningless static. “Y-yes,” he says. “I want – want you. I want your pleasure, your desire.” His hands fall from Drift’s face, and grip his hips instead, digging his digits into the transformation seams lining the gap where Drift’s thighs join his pelvic plates, tracing the wiring he can reach with his shallow touch. “I want to touch you.”  
  


Drift lets out a groan of his own when Wing delves his fingertips in deeper, stroking the sensitive protoform beneath the wiring. “Good,” he says forcefully, hands flying to Wing’s pair of large rotator gears situated either side of his abdomen. They’re for his transformation, Drift knows, capable of literally folding Wing in half as he shifts into his jet mode. They’re also incredibly sensitive – exposed gears like that always are.  
  


Drift strokes them with shameless purpose, gathering his EM field at his fingertips to exert charge upon the hyper-sensitive joints. Wing bucks, vocaliser making a wordless shriek of static-laced pleasure. His hands are quickly removed from Drift’s hips, holding higher on his sides – to keep them there entangled in the internals while Wing’s frame was not fully within control would be dangerous. Drift didn’t expect him to do it, was prepared for a painful tug, but the thoughtless care of Wing humbles him even now.  
  


“Drift!” Wing chokes out, his frame trying to push up as much as it can, to press in close to Drift’s touch. “Don’t – I don’t want to hurt you.”  
  


Drift’s fingers pause their teasing, Wing shivering. “Sorry,” he says, gruffly. He gathers more charge to his fingers again, dispersing it directly on to Wing’s rotator gears and distracting him thoroughly before he can think to continue talking.  


Wing moans, his pistons audibly creaking as his hips flex upwards again. Drift presses down harder, letting Wing arouse himself senseless on the unyielding friction he’s providing. Drift lets out short gasps of his own at the feeling, the intensity of Wing’s EM field as it crashes into his, the repeated sliding of their heated panelling against each other. Wing’s hands clutch at Drift’s sides, sparking with their own static electricity, flowing over the sensors there, unfortunately dampened by the battle-grade armour plates.   
  


Wing is drunk on his own arousal. Expected, really. Flight frame types are known for having a pretty high interface drive, due to their powerful engines coupled with their many sensors. And Wing wasn’t exactly able to leave Drift alone for long, those last years of his life. Drift eyes the turbines in Wing’s shoulders – the fans inside will be sensitive, but they’re whining a high pitch and whirring very fast, venting heat into the room from Wing’s taxed systems. Best to leave them alone; losing a finger in them would ruin the mood completely.  
  


Drift leans down, catching Wing’s lips in a kiss again. Wing opens his mouth with no hesitation this time, onlining his golden optics to stare directly into Drift’s own, capturing his attention as effectively as all those centuries ago, when an angry and lost Decepticon had agreed to help a clothed stranger set slaves free.  
  


Drift keeps the kiss short this time, trailing his lips across Wing’s flushed cheeks, feeling their warmth on his glossa, letting his own oral lubricant dampen Wing’s faceplates as he mouths his way over to Wing’s hinged finials. He teases the hinge briefly – Wing whines – and then closes his warm mouth over the tip of the right one entirely, licking and sucking at the sensor-heavy plating.  
  


“Come _on,”_ Wing gasps out, after he’s finished moaning in desire. “Stop _teasing.”_ He punctuates this with a pointed buck of his hips, moving his hands to play with the bio-lights on Drift’s chest. Drift groans. Not many rub his bio-lights _that_ way, drawing circles around their rims, building the sensation slowly.  
  


Drift reaches down, placing his palm directly over Wing’s interface panel, holding it lightly. Wing whines, then stills. The panel is hot, sensor-net tingling with charge, but Drift has to ask, first.  
  


“Still want this?” he says carefully. Who cares if it’s just a dream? If this Wing is only a figment created by old memory files, the gaps filled in with Drift’s imagination? Drift is not – was _never_ and never _will be_ – that kind of monster.   
  


“Yes,” Wing replies, reassuring. The mech’s processor must be inundated with sensory feedback, but he doesn’t fail to recognise Drift’s need for more level-headed consent. “Please. I want you.”  
  


Drift swallows back a whine of his own at those words. _Yes. Please. I want you._ Simple and clear, a fantasy long held. No expectations, no exchange. _I want you._ Quite a few have said that to Drift, but he can count on the digits of one hand those who have not made him feel demeaned while saying them.  
  


He lived in Wing’s home for quite some time, and never once did the mech look at him like he was a frag waiting for a place to happen. Never once did he peek at him in the wash-rack, or let his hands wander while training. Never – not once – did Wing treat him with any disrespect.  
  


Drift taps lightly on the panel. “Open up, then,” he says softly.  
  


Wing retracts the armour plating. Beneath, set in his exposed protoform, two more retractable plates are sat, one atop the other. Between the two is the anterior node, glowing a low gold colour. Here, the protoform metal is soft and pliable, sensitive circuitry just below the surface. Drift can see the thinner lines of bio-lighting lining each of the panels, spreading from and meeting again at the anterior node.  
  


“Which one?” Wing asks, resetting his vocaliser again. Drift hides a small smile at that.  
  


Drift hums consideringly, eyeing up both panels. In truth, he has no set fantasy from this point. Wing himself was the fantasy. Drift’s valve clenches behind its panelling at the thought of riding Wing’s spike, but the thought of his own length pushing into Wing’s valve, feeling its calipers cycle down as Wing begs for Drift… also a tantalising idea.  
  


Drift traces Wing’s valve panel lightly, fingers sparking tiny volts of charge around the rim. Wing moans, and his valve panel snaps open, lubricant immediately leaking out with nothing to seal it away. Drift eagerly watches several droplets slide down from the valve entrance to the protoform, and then down farther to gather at the edges of the armour plating. Within seconds, gravity does its work, and Wing’s slick drips onto Drift’s berth, dark spots on the high-density foam.  
  


“Beautiful,” Drift whispers, dipping his fingertips into Wing’s valve entrance, smearing the lubricant as he goes. Wing must have had a lot of stored-up charge for his valve to lubricate that fast as soon as he chose which part of his array to prime. His own interface array is pinging incessantly for him to reveal it, but he ignores it for now.  
  


The valves many calipers, are, of course, not loosened enough for proper penetration yet. It’s not entirely unlike a human’s equivalent; a tunnel with rows of calipers spread along it, covered by a thick, sensor-rich mesh of soft metal. Each caliper makes a ridge, and bundles of sensors tend to congregate at them. At the very end, the interior node and the interface port. The port only opens upon a system overload, ready for the jack of a spike to connect and upload sensory data. It isn’t possible to transfer any other kind of data, though many have tried.  
  


Drift pushes in one digit, slipping past the entrance ring and hitting the first ridge very quickly. He rubs at the sensors there, enticing the caliper to loosen its hold and spread. Wing moans and bucks into his hand, forcing it in deeper. Drift moves his other hand to trace over the pulsing anterior node, rubbing at it, gentle but relentless.  
  


Wing moans, squirming on Drift’s finger as he pushes in deeper. His first and second calipers have loosened, and Drift is pressing against the third one, gathering charge at his fingertips to feed to the embedded sensors, entreating them to welcome him. There tend only to be three or four calipers before the interior node and port.   
  


Drift, realising that he needs a better angle, pulls his finger out of Wing’s valve, ignoring his wordless noise of protest. His hand is soaked with lubricant, the type that takes ages to clean out of the seams later, and there is a dark pool upon the berth top. Heat rushes through his frame to see it, even as he pushes back inside with two fingers this time and his wrist at a better position.  
  


Wing’s vocaliser stutters out a many-part whine as the third caliper gives way beneath the attentions of two fingers working to widen it, and his turbines would be screeching if they were less well-oiled. As it is, they’re moving fast enough to rattle Wing’s frame slightly, brief flashes of charge sparking wildly up and down, transferring instantly over to Drift as their EM fields merge at the edges. The grounding bars set into the berth take the excess charge, humming with its power as it crackles through the air. The smell of ozone begins to gather more strongly.  
  


Drift’s rarely been so aroused in his life, and he’s not even opened his own panel yet. He pushes his fingers past Wing’s third caliper and discovers that it’s his last. Well, mecha who had more than three _did_ tend to be larger builds. He pushes directly against the interior node, rubbing there with sparking fingers, the slick lubricant carrying the charge beautifully. The sound Wing makes is _obscene.  
  
_

“Please,” Wing says – _begs._ Drift’s nearly punch-drunk on that alone. “Please, Drift, please. I want you inside me, I want to feel you, come on, do it, _please.”  
  
_

Drift swallows the excess oral lubricant his frame has produced in its arousal, and twists his hand. Wing moans as Drift’s fingers slip and slide against his interior node, while his anterior node is greedily absorbing the static charge from Drift’s fingers, glowing brighter along with the other bio-lights lining Wing’s interface array.  
  


“It’ll be tight,” Drift warns. “You’re not that stretched yet.”  
  


“I’m wet enough that I could frag the Great Sword,” Wing says, which – is _not_ what Drift ever imagined he’d say, and he snorts before he can help it. “It’s true! I’m making a right mess of your berth.”  
  


Drift looks down at the pool of lubricant on the berth foam, the way the droplets are clinging before they break and fall. “I like the mess,” he says, honestly. “Means that you mean it. That you want me.”  
  


“Of course I want you,” Wing says. “I’ve wanted you since forever.”  
  


Drift suddenly wishes that this wasn’t a dream. He’s going to be wrecked when he wakes up and this is over, when he goes back to a world in which Wing is too far away to touch.  
  


He doesn’t reply, instead settling backwards a bit and removing his hands from Wing’s array. Wing makes a noise in the back of his throat, but doesn’t protest, gold optics watching as Drift sets his hands onto his own panel.  
  


“What – ?” Wing begins to ask, but cuts off as Drift digs his fingers into his own seams to undo the manual locks before he retracts the panel. “Ah.”  
  


Drift pauses, waiting for Wing to ask, waiting for him to suddenly remember the type of interfacing history Drift has that would lead him to put security locks on his own panel. But he doesn’t. Wing only looks him in the optics, unafraid, unhesitant, filling his EM field with care and acceptance.   
  


Drift swallows again, and then pulls his optics away. He looks down at his own array as he slides back his spike panel, the charge gathered in the array now directed one way or the other. His spike slides out of its housing, pressurising. It’s black, ridged, and with blue bio-lights trailing up it, perfectly ordinary and without mods. At overload, the interface jack will slide out of the slit in the flared head, ready to dump sensory data into a port, should there be one available, and with it, transfluid.  
  


Wing spreads his legs wider as Drift shifts to get into a better position. He can see the first caliper clenching around nothing, and surely the rest are the same. Drift cups the still-dripping lubricant in one palm, letting it pool for a moment there, and then grasps his spike, spreading it. No need to make this a more difficult fit than it could be. Wing lets out a quiet whimper at the sight.  
  


Drift guides the head of his spike to the entrance of Wing’s valve, and pauses for a brief second to consider how he’s longed for this fantasy to come true for such a stretch of time that he’d nearly given up on being able to wrangle his limited lucid-dreaming ability to co-operate. Then he puts such thoughts aside as irrelevant to the here-and-now, and pushes a little, letting the entrance ring catch on the flared head.  
  


Wing groans as the head of Drift’s spike presses inwards, one moment, two, and then the head makes it past, the tip pushing against the first caliper’s ridge and the base of the flare resting against the inside of his entrance ring. Drift sucks in a sharp breath, pausing and letting it cycle through his systems, before he asks, “You okay?”  
  


“Yeah,” Wing groans out, “you can move.”  
  


Drift shifts one hand to grip Wing’s hip strut, and the other to rub against the anterior node, as he carefully pushes farther, feeling Wing’s calipers clench down on him. The ridges of his spike catch against the ridges of the calipers, and they’re both moaning as Drift continues to breach Wing.  
  


It’s a tight fit, he knew it would be. Wing is lubricated to all Pit and back, but they didn’t stretch and loosen his calipers the way they should have. He’s moaning, though, whining and bucking up into Drift, so it seems like he doesn’t mind the intense stretch as Drift essentially _forces_ Wing to yield to him and let him through.  
  


In fact, Wing spreads his legs farther and tries to wrap them around Drift’s hips, grinding enthusiastically, so Drift’s probably not doing anything he doesn’t want.   
  


Drift rubs against Wing’s anterior node one last time before taking both of his hip struts into his hands. He’ll need better leverage for what he’s about to do next.  
  


Drift carefully rolls his hips, tugging at Wing’s to meet him in the middle, and they both cry out as Drift’s spike pushes past the second caliper, the ridges sliding past each other with a sharp zing of pleasure, the tip bumping into the third caliper with the sudden momentum. Wing pushes up into him, instinctively aware that there’s only one caliper ring left before Drift reaches the valve ceiling.   
  


Drift has to stop for a moment, venting hard and trembling in place, charge zapping through his frame. It’s a tight fit, was always going to be, but he’d forgotten how _much_ feedback there was when both participants were enthusiastically willing to be involved. Wing’s EM field and his are pulsing pleasure back and forth, and their charge is sparking and mixing together. Wing clenching down on him is wonderful, amazing, but really only the tip of the iceberg (as humans say) regarding the sheer overwhelming amount of pleasure coursing through Drift’s overtaxed systems.  
  


A hand touches his face. “Drift?” Wing asks.  
  


“One moment,” Drift chokes out.  
  


“Do you want to – ?”  
  


“I don’t want to stop,” Drift cuts Wing off. “Just – give me a moment.” The fact that Wing even _asked…  
  
_

Drift takes a few seconds to compose himself. Then he flexes his hips, pushing against the sudden clamp of Wing’s calipers. “Okay,” he says. “I’m ready.”  
  


“You sure?” Wing asks again, relentless in his kindness. “We don’t – ”  
  


“I want to,” Drift interrupts again. Then, “Unless – ”  
  


“Please don’t stop,” Wing takes his turn to interrupt.  
  


Drift smiles down at him, expression honest and unmoderated. He _knows_ he’s showing his fangs, the ones that get him cringes from most Autobots, but he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care because Wing doesn’t care.  
  


He begins to thrust into Wing again, starting shallow as he entreats the third (and tightest) caliper to let him pass with gentle and repeated impacts against its ridge. The slickness inside is rich with charge, sensors lit up and driving Wing into incoherent moans. The rub of the ridges against the thick mesh bearing down on Drift’s spike is some kind of exquisite pain, too intense to be called pleasure, too good to want it to stop.  
  


Drift gets a little farther every time, Wing clinging so tight that he might be leaving dents in Drift’s sides, but if he is Drift would wear them with pride. And then, one final thrust, and the caliper loosens enough for the flared head of Drift’s spike to breach it, bumping into the throbbing interior node with enough of an impact to have Wing nearly buck them both off the berth as he yells out in wordless pleasure.  
  


Drift moans too, the tight pressure of the clenching valve rippling down his spike in waves, the natural pattern the calipers follow in order to milk a spike of all its transfluid and charge. It’s never been more arousing before.  
  


Drift’s armour rattles as he trembles in place for one moment, his vents gaping open wide and blowing heat everywhere. Wing’s not in any better shape. The room is filled with the scent of ozone, and even the grounding bars constantly clearing the air of charge in intermittent flashes can’t stop the heaviness of the static around them.   
  


“Do it,” Wing gasps up at him. “Jack in. I want to feel the rush of you, your data transferred into me. I want to feel your pleasure as my own.”  
  


Drift whines, and grips Wing’s hips, pushing in with more force than he knows he should. Wing only moans, though, clenches harder, gets wetter. His calipers undulate and Drift’s spike shoves in rougher than is advisable, their ridges scraping against each other, the wet charge zinging through their sensors.   
  


Drift stutters as he goes on, losing his rhythm as his own charge builds and builds, cycling through his systems almost painfully. He leans down again as he thrusts, Wing meeting him on every grind, and presses a messy kiss to Wing’s mouth, biting and licking with no restraint or style, wanting to taste him, to taste that piece of history still alive there.  
  


Wing, finally, his vents blasting hot air and his helm finials twitching on their hinges, clamps his knees tightly against Drift’s sides, hands pressing in dents, and _wails._ His valve cycles down, _tight,_ and Drift can feel, under the head of his spike, the port opening in the valve ceiling.  
  


The sudden sweep of charge crackling through Wing’s EM field and sensor-net drives Drift straight over the peak as well, dragging him into overload. The tip of his spike splits open, transfluid spilling, and the jack catches in Wing’s port. With a strut-deep _click,_ they are suddenly connected into each other’s systems.  
  


_Pleasure.  
  
_

The feedback loop is tactile only, their sensor-nets buzzing as one. The intensity of their shared pleasure is felt on the processing level, snatches of foreign sensory pings and internal system responses bowling over both of them. The two collapse in a clanging tangle of limbs on the berth, hooked together, locked in, unable to disengage until they’ve found an equilibrium.  
  


It takes a couple of minutes for the data to form into two coherent streams, for Drift to be able to say _this is me_ and _that is Wing_ with no hesitation. The valve clamped so alluringly around him is still milking his spike of all his system’s transfluid, the way it's meant to. His spike is twitching, aching as its charge is sucked from it by ever-greedy sensor bundles inside Wing.  
  


Wing.   
  


Drift raises his head, squints, his HUD full of systems running resets. Wing’s arms are around him, holding him, stroking gently along his back, tracing the thick cables and lax joints. His legs are still spread around Drift’s hips, holding him close, though not as tightly now. His gold optics are clear – he’s likely been waiting for Drift to come up from the interface lock for at least a few moments.  
  


“Hey,” Drift says, hoarsely, as though that’s not the most lame and pathetic thing to say to someone after sharing a mind-blowing overload with them and also still being stuck in a state of lock with them.  
  


“Hey,” says Wing, shifting slightly in place. His valve weeps lubricant still, his hips twitching. He’s probably over-sensitised, the pleasure a thin line away from discomfort, but he shows no signs of wanting Drift to retract his jack and slip free of his valve. “You okay?”  
  


“Good,” Drift says quietly. “Really – really good.”  
  


“I’m glad,” Wing says. Then he visibly hesitates one moment before asking, “Are you… happy?”  
  


Drift feels – a little confused. “Happy?”  
  


“With how things are,” Wing clarifies. “Your life. The _Lost Light,_ you said? Are you happy here?”  
  


“I am,” Drift says, slowly. “But. Hm.”  
  


“Go on,” Wing says, gently, encouragingly.  
  


“I was happy in New Crystal City,” Drift admits after a moment. “I know it – maybe didn’t seem like it. But I was. I just – didn’t know _how_ to be happy, at that point. It made me confused, and you know how I react when I feel like things are too much.”  
  


“You lash out,” Wing says, as though Drift doesn’t already know that. “Do you miss it?”  
  


“All the time,” Drift sighs. “At the strangest moments. I won’t even think of the place for weeks, then suddenly it hits me again. It’s not. I don’t know. Even if it were still there, even if I went back, I wouldn’t want to stay.”  
  


“Oh?” Wing asks. “Happier here, then?”  
  


“A different sort of happiness,” Drift answers. “Not more or less. I just – you were the one who made New Crystal City happy. Without you there, I wouldn’t want to stay. I _didn’t_ stay.”  
  


“… Oh,” Wing says. As though this is news. As though they haven’t just kissed and touched each other. As though their systems are not still locked together.  
  


Drift shifts up, resting weight on his knees and retracting his jack. He watches in silence as the data feed from Wing disappears from his HUD. Tingling sparks pulse without much power as he carefully pulls back, dragging his spike out of Wing’s valve. The ridges still catch each other, bright points of sensitivity, but Drift’s exhausted, suddenly, and while the idea of a round two riding Wing’s spike is still intriguing, he wants to stop and power down his interface array more.  
  


Wing whimpers lightly as Drift’s spike head tugs at the inside of his entrance ring, reluctant to release him, before it slips free with an obscene noise. Lubricant and transfluid slide out with no preamble, the calipers clenching around nothing for a moment, before Wing has the frame of mind to trigger his valve panel to close. Drift’s spike retracts into its housing and he closes his own panel over it, feeling languid. He engages his pelvic armour to fold into place again, slipping his digits inside the seams to set the manual locks. In the corner of his optic, he sees Wing do the same with his own pelvic armour, though he has no locks to set.  
  


Drift, after a moment, clambers off of Wing on unsteady pedes. He lingers by the side of the berth as Wing sits up and swings his legs off the side, coming to stand beside him. And curse him – he’s steadier than Drift is. The cheater has omni-directional equilibrium systems as part of his flight frame. It’s _not fair.  
  
_

“Are you upset?” Drift asks, after a moment of silence. “That – that I’ve grown happiness in a world without you?”  
  


Wing takes Drift’s hand. “I know I’m not around anymore,” he says quietly. “And I’m sorry that made you unhappy. But I refuse to be envious that you have found happiness elsewhere. I’m not upset.”  
  


Drift looks at him. “… You are.”  
  


Wing sighs. “A little,” he admits, reluctantly. “Not that you’ve found it. I only ever wanted you to be happy. But – I cannot deny that I had wished to be part of it.”  
  


Wing holds Drift’s hand to his face, looking him right in the optics. Then he lets it go, stepping back, turning to cast a gaze over the room. The altar, the shelves, the stained berth…the Great Sword, leaning against the wall. He walks over and picks it up.  
  


“It’s yours,” Drift says, though he doesn’t think for a second that Wing doesn’t already know that. “Dai Atlas…” he trails off.  
  


“Gave it to you to keep my memory alive,” Wing finishes. “Yes. I know.” He runs a hand over it, down the flat side of the blade. “Yes,” he says, quieter, “and what a job it has done.”  
  


Wing puts the Great Sword down, laying it horizontal at the foot of the altar, as though he’d just finished meditating with it. Drift suddenly remembers complaining to him all the time about leaving it on the floor in Wing’s own home, but he cannot summon the words to his vocaliser now.  
  


“What?” Wing asks, teasing as he straightens up. “Nothing to say?”  
  


Drift shakes his head. “We cannot all be lazy meditators.”  
  


“Such cruelty,” Wing tuts. “I’m – well. You. Are either wearing it out or meditating with it. It’s heavy to get up and get down. Why not store it where it’s convenient?”  
  


“That’s what the wall is for,” Drift says, dryly. “It leans most fetchingly.”  


Wing laughs. Primus. Drift has missed that sound. He memorises it now, thankful for his lucid dream recreating it better than he ever could consciously.  
  


“You have to go,” Wing says, abruptly. “You’ve got first shift, remember?”  
  


Drift remembers. He slumps a little in place, saddened. “Will I dream of you again?” he asks.  
  


“I don’t know,” Wing says, honestly. He wavers in place a moment, and then steps back towards Drift. He presses an unpractised, earnest kiss to Drift’s lips. “Go forth,” he says quietly, “grow more happiness. I am watching over you.”  
  


Drift nods, manages to get his arms around Wing, feeling the hum of his EM field, the press of his plating, and then it’s fading away, going hazy. Drift makes a choked-off sob in the back of his throat, the bright and beautiful gold of Wing’s optics the last thing to fade out, and then his internal chronometer is waking him up.  
  


He sits up in his berth, tears blinking at the edges of his optics. His frame is warm, buzzing with spent charge, and his legs are wet. There is a smell of ozone in the air. Drift wipes a hand on his faceplates, curses lowly, and swings off the berth to his personal wash-rack, a perk of owning the ship.  
  


He blasts the solvent on a high pressure, trying to wash as fast as he can. He is not eager to face the day, but neither does he wish to linger in memory. Wing is dead. Gone. Too far away for Drift to touch. It does no one any good to let _what-ifs_ consume them.  
  


He glances a look at his soiled berth, and resolves to get the high-density foam topping changed and washed as soon as first shift is done. Ultra Magnus is already on the bridge, waiting for Drift to take over, and he dislikes tardiness to the degree that it’s honestly just not worth it to be even a klik late.  
  


Drift reaches for the Great Sword on automatic, and finds his fingers scraping empty wall. He pauses for a second, and glances around the room.  
  


There – it’s on the floor next to the altar. Exactly where Wing left it, why did Drift think it was leaning against the wall? And –  


With a lurching start, Drift remembers that Wing is nothing but a dream now. And Drift never places the Great Sword on the ground in front of the altar, no matter how nostalgic he’s feeling.   
  


He shivers in place. It’s – nothing. He came back to his hab tipsy last night, having been sharing a drink with Rodimus in Swerve’s. He probably just – put it there, drunk, the whole thing seeming like the best idea. It’s probably even why he finally managed to dream of Wing – the reminder of _Great Sword? More like Ground Sword. You really need a proper rack for it, Wing_ causing the dream.  
  


The Great Sword hums under his touch as he picks it up, slings it on his back. It feels like Wing, as always, his spark signature imprinted forever into it, echoing on. Most days, it even feels comforting, rather than grief-inducing.  
  


Drift turns, and walks out, the door sliding shut behind him.   
  


Whatever mess the _Lost Light_ next ends up in won’t give him time to linger in old dreams.  
  


**Author's Note:**

> The title is from Richard Siken's _Snow and Dirty Rain_ , which is a reasonably popular and oft-quoted poem of his, but still absolutely beautiful. Highly recommend giving it a read. You can find it [here.](http://poeticfuck.blogspot.com/2008/06/siken-snow-and-dirty-rain.html)
> 
> I can also be found on [tumblr.](https://stairre.tumblr.com/) Come and say hello!


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